Lobstermen irked by longer inspections at Calais

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia – Nova Scotia’s lucrative fall lobster fishery could lose millions of dollars because of long delays at a U.S. border crossing, the province’s fish packers say.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday that the agency has stepped up inspections at Calais, Maine, across the border from St. Stephen, New Brunswick.

Agency spokesman Mark Oswell said up to 20 shipments of live lobsters are being inspected daily, compared with four or five in previous years.

He said the goal is to ensure Canadian and U.S. fishermen follow the same rules, and the agency now has the resources to make sure that happens.

Inspectors are looking for undersized and egg-bearing female lobsters, which are supposed to be thrown back into the water as a conservation measure.

Oswell said inspectors had uncovered violations in a “fair portion” of shipments, though he couldn’t offer details.

Denny Morrow, spokesman for the Nova Scotia Fish Packers Association, said some violations are inevitable, but the problem isn’t bad enough to put the entire industry in jeopardy.

“I don’t think we have a conservation enforcement regulation problem,” said Morrow. “Our lobster resource is in good shape, and that doesn’t happen unless you have conservation.”

He said some shipments have been delayed up to five hours and the holdups threaten live lobsters heading to U.S. markets or the Boston airport and beyond.

“Lobsters this time of year are stressed when they’re out of the water – they die when they’re out of the water too long,” Morrow said from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, the center of one of Canada’s busiest lobster-producing districts.

“A truck standing on the side of the road at a border crossing is costing us money.”

Ian Marshall, a spokesman for Canada’s federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, said while 1,700 boats participate in the fishery every year, only about 40 fisheries officers are available to inspect lobster catches.

“It’s difficult for every fisherman to measure every lobster, so it’s conceivable that within a catch there’s the odd short lobster that slips in,” said Marshall, noting that half of the season’s lobsters are landed in the first month alone.

The fall lobster fishery in southwestern Nova Scotia opened Nov. 28.

The Fisheries Department estimates 15,000 tons of lobster are landed in the busiest fishing zone, which stretches from Shelburne to Digby.

Those catches are worth approximately $350 million a year, with 80 percent of the lobster being exported.

U.S. officials said the stricter enforcement measures will remain in place around Christmas, New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s Day, typically the busiest times of year for lobster shipments.